The visual of the first game was like a movie and it was written to feel like a movie. The only difference that makes you feel Mass Effect 3 being more movie than the others is that Mass Effect 3 is more spectacular.
The feeling came more from being in a spectator seat quite a lot of time and a new layer of distance between Shepard and the player. Suddenly he did stuff I didn´t understand and had thoughts I couldn´t follow. In some places I got the feeling that the game grabbed my mouse and keyboard and told me to watch the awesome movie they made. I get why they used a lot more cutscenes as you can do and tell a lot more more fluently, but in some places they were really moronic. Low point was Thessia for me, where you get told with a jackhammer to feel sorry and depressed, not only for losing to Kai Leng but for losing Thessia. Uh ok, I lost Thessia? Whatever happens downs there after we left wouldn´t be any different in the timespan inbetween. This planet will burn no matter what I do and the last time I checked, the lollipop wasn´t finished anyways. Please stop feeding me that crap, especially after you turned my prothean expert into a complete moron so Bioware could make their own very special take on "the space elves are sinister and manipulative." Who would have guessed? That´s so tired as "humans are versatile."
The game is on railroad tracks of course compared to a P&P, but you had a lot of leeway determining why you do stuff and in some places you could do things differently. It was still there but they intruded into the sphere which was established as player zone several times.
If that's not original for you then nothing is orignal for you. Honestly, if you take a look at how people have received the ending, you'll see that they didn't expected that kind of ending. How many people will you find here saying that the ending didn't fit the rest of the trilogy?
Hm ok, in general yes. It´s rather rare that the protagonist goes along with the antagonist telling him something. The more usual thing is giving the villain the finger after his big reveal of why he did it and the "join me in this" speech.
There´s probably a misunderstanding because I was talking about the death of the protagonist and a bittersweet ending. Perhaps I joined in too late when it was all new or so, but I bought the game in 2015. My library at this point had RPGs with endings like:
-Mission accomplished but you get shafted out of your pay.
-Mission accomplished but every ending has its drawbacks and you lose your hometurf to a dragon next year.
-Killed my sister I was looking for while possessed; got locked up wih her in mindless bliss in a gilded cage; found and lost her again.
-Won but my boyfriend ran away because of his shady past(fixed female protag). Oh and bad guy told me, I was performing great and did what he wanted.
-Got the stuff back I was looking for, did I just kill the future self of the boy I was looking and caring for. Also my "freedom fighter" buddies got shafted.
-Witcher 2. A whole joyride of pick what is less worse.
-Deus Ex. Haven´t finished yet, because of some reasons, but what I´ve heard the endings aren´t rides to happy lalaland.
And last but not least, Endless Legend, a strategy game. You won and are now ruler of a dying planet wrapped in eternal winter. Good thing I went for economic victory, I can now build a gilded mausoleum as a testament to my folly.
Oh and I have two games where "you won, you live, everything is fine, you did it."
Picked up Witcher 3 in the meantime. Ok I would say, it´s mostly a happy ending in the major decision department, if you don´t really care what kind of sucky ruler rules what. Ok you can screw up pretty easily and then it´s
So ok, I seems we talked about different things and there was a bit of confusion. The ending in ME is quite rare as a whole, but if we focus on the bittersweet and Die Shepard part, it´s not so uncommon or somehow I manage to only pick up niche games. Perhaps I missed the era of shiny happy endings games.
So why did you play Mass Effect? I mean from the first till the third episode the whole writing is based on using codes. You don't see the difference between using codes and being clichés. The first is a postmodernist aesthetic, the second is just a problem of writing. Mass Effect has always been based its writing on Hollywood codes, that's why Mass Effect 1 was quite popular, and that's why a lot of people prefer Mass Effect 2 . No one played Mass Effect because it was original. They played it because they recognized many references and codes. But when people think that Mass Effect was cliché and didn't have any other purpose, they don't see how Bioware used these clichés and how they slowly created a distance from the Hollywood codes.
The code in the first two was more to my liking? Ah well, that will probably only get me a "you are a sucker for Hollywood stuff." 
Seems I shouldn´t have used the word cliché here when I described my problem. It didn´t really nail it. Perhaps it´s more a limiting of choices. Ok not exactly correct, I go into more detail.
The problem I had with the start of ME 3 was cutscene, cutscene, cutscene, I am allowed to say something to the committee. What is it? "We have to work together" or "we fight or we die?" Oh come on. Where is the usual option of not giving a lame speech, something like "it´s too late now dudes" or "you are asking me that, now?" It´s not like "too late, duh" would be more of a stretch than going pathos.
In short, it felt like watching a movie and a token effort to participation of the player. It felt like they wanted to make a film and only reluctantly acknowledged that you aren´t more than a passive viewer and your input isn´t really wanted. And then they proceeded to intrude in areas they previously left to you over the course of the game, reinforcing this impression.
I continued because of several factors. Was an annoyance but not a ragequitting annoyance, paid money for it and well, the start of ME 2 was even worse. Ok it became more annoying as the game went on, but at this point I already invested time and effort into it and I wanted to see the rest. And well it´s not like everything was bad. the gameplay is better and even some of the auto features were ok. The auto dialogue with your companions was ok, it saved you the time of clicking the "Click this to check, if there is some new dialogue" and the cutscenes had the benefit of a mory dynamic conversation flowing more naturally. And yeah there was quite a lot in the game to enjoy of the story.
The plot was uh well. Let´s say that you might like postmodern stuff or going highly symbolic, paradoxical or so. I prefer a more grounded approach when I as a player am asked to make decisions. Or at least it didn´t felt fitting for the setting. Actually the whole thing felt less grounded than my fantasy setting with a whole lot of magitech. I would feel ok with it, but the first games didn´t have that vibe of going surreal or "there is a hidden reality behind the obvious." Some bits were there, but not enough to reality jump. Not sure, if they intended to ease you into it, but the pacing felt off. And I find it a bad idea to sell you the starkid as a trustworthy source of exposition when you were stepping over his victims five minutes ago. IIRC you said, that it was a masterful entrapment by the story, the antagonist or so. Sry can´t remember exactly what.
I didn´t feel that. it was more like they were steering you away with the ganeplay and lack of options in the dilogue wheel. If they wanted to entrap me, they should have involved me somehow, instead you got some simple block answers which sounded more like "writers don´t know,too." There wasn´t a hard choice I was unwilling to make or some stuff besides "Know something?" "Nope" "Ok." What we got were more fights with a ridiculously overblown secondary villain named Cerberus with a villain brigade right out of the institute for mentally challenged people, for some reason, not something that would delve into the matter at hand. I mean stuff leading to the end.
It was block, block, block and we don´t give you the option, you are trapped by the most nefarious villain of them all, the dialogue wheel.
Hollywood golden age was in the 60's-70's.
Ah that could explain a difference in perspective. That stuff was on rerun on TV when I grew up.
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